How to Get Rid of Roaches

How to Get Rid of Roaches

Nobody enjoys bug infestations, but cockroaches undoubtedly take it to a new level. Among the many other disturbing qualities of these beetle-like insects, they can live a month without food, two weeks without water and up to one week without their heads. Furthermore, females can birth up to 500 babies at a time within just three weeks!

What does this mean if you have them creeping around your home? For starters, it means you have to stifle your gag reflex and figure out how to get rid of them! We asked Julie Edelman, "The Accidental Housewife," to demonstrate two effective ways to evict roaches from the home with food you already have in your kitchen.

Jar Trap

What you’ll need:

An apple, a banana or a potato

Petroleum jelly

A jar

Slice up the fruit (or vegetable) of choice and put the slices in the bottom of the jar.

With your finger, spread a liberal amount of petroleum jelly around the rim of the jar.

Place the jar on your countertop or at the base of your kitchen cabinets.

“They’ll smell the fruit and crawl right into the trap,” Edelman says. “When they try to get out, they’ll get stuck and they won’t be able to leave.”

Cucumber PeelsWhile roaches will eat basically anything, there is one food they don’t like. “Roaches don’t like cucumbers, so if you put peels around the edges of your kitchen, that will also deter them," Edelman says.